The Pope and The Crusades

While one can point to countless examples of events that altered the history of European, and to a larger extent, world history, there is no doubt that the crusades is one of those events. Lasting over a century, the conflicts between the crusader nations and the middle east solidified the Pope's legitimacy, bolstered the European nation's economy for centuries to come, and increased the Catholic influence on continental Europe extending into Asia. Using data, textbooks, and journals, this research paper examines the crusades from the perspective of the twenty-first century. The research only invites speculations for what the world would be like today without the crusades and centuries of catholic influence that followed